Despite accidents, bicycling getting safer

Monday

May 31, 2010 at 12:01 AMMay 31, 2010 at 1:10 PM

Last summer, Greg Yoakum was riding his bike about 25 mph through Hilliard when a car traveling the opposite direction turned left across his path, sending him crashing into the windshield and then onto the road.

Last summer, Greg Yoakum was riding his bike about 25 mph through Hilliard when a car traveling the opposite direction turned left across his path, sending him crashing into the windshield and then onto the road.

He was one of the 269 bicycle-vehicle crash victims in Franklin County in 2009.

His right arm had a cut 8 inches long and 3 inches wide. He injured his lower back and sustained a 4-inch contusion on his right leg. He left the hospital using a walker, which he needed for a few days.

"I completely went up onto her windshield, smashed her windshield, and was taken by ambulance to the hospital," said Yoakum, 37.

After a month or so of recovery, Yoakum was back on his bike - albeit a little more nervous and more aware of the risks.

Nationally, more than 700 people die each year in bike-vehicle crashes. In central Ohio, a 20-year-old Dublin bicyclist died Friday after a hit-and-run collision on the Northwest Side.

The number of cyclists is growing, but biking fatalities both nationwide and locally have not increased over the past several years.

"There's a clear correlation between an increase in cyclists on the road and the per-capita safety of those cyclists," Stephens said.

"The message that we have been pushing for the last couple of years is that we know if we put more cyclists on the road, it will actually become safer" because motorists will expect to encounter them and become more cautious.

Pedestrian-car crashes are still far more common in Franklin County than bike-car crashes. Of course, there are far more pedestrians crossing streets than bikers riding on them, and pedestrians are much more likely to die if hit by a car than bicyclists, statistics provided by the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission show.

Franklin County averaged about 284 bike-car crashes per year from 2003 through 2009, and 12 were fatal. That equates to about 1.7 fatalities a year. That means that the cyclists died in 0.6 percent of the crashes.

Compare that with the county's pedestrian-car crashes, which happened an average of 451 times a year over that same period. Ninety-six were fatal. On average, 13.7 pedestrians died each year, or in more than 3 percent of the crashes.

Nationally, the 716 cyclist fatalities in 2008 was 6 percent lower than in 1998, and 29 percent lower than at the peak in 1975. That year, 1,003 fatalities were recorded, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Over that 11-year span, the nation has averaged 721 fatalities each year, while pedestrian-vehicle fatalities averaged more than 4,800 per year.

The number of bikers on the road is likely to continue to grow as a movement to encourage cycling gathers steam. How that will affect the accident numbers is anyone's guess.

Consider Biking announced two weeks ago a $295,451 grant from the Columbus Foundation to increase and incentivize the use of bicycle transportation by central Ohio commuters. Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman led 70 central Ohio CEOs and local cyclists on a 2.5-mile commute to kick off "Bike to Work Week" and support the new grant initiative, which aims to get people to bicycle to work two days per month by 2012.

Even though it's participating in the program, Columbia Gas is "always trying to promote safety and engrain safety in our culture here," including with biking to work, said spokesman Ken Stammen. "As far as encouraging people to bike to work, we realize it's not for everyone."

Yoakum is back to riding his bike about five times a week.

"I've gotten a little more defensive now," he said, including watching the drivers' eyes to assess if they've noticed him on his bike and slowing down if he suspects they haven't.

"You always have to know what your potential problems are," he said. But "if someone hits you from behind, you can't control that."

More than most, he realizes the risks, but he has no plans to stop cycling.

"The moment you walk out of your door, you're taking risks," he said.

bbush@dispatch.com

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